HERE COME CYCLING'S ROAD WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: One of the biggest and best weeks in bicycle racing is headed to the US for only the second time ever
It's only the second time they have been held on US soil - you have to go back 29 years to Colorado Springs, Colorado, for the first visit - and the US has an excellent shot at winning several medals, most notably in the elite women's road race with Wall Street analyst turned bike racer Evelyn Stevens and in the elite women's time trial with Olympic gold medalist Kristin Armstrong.
While the Tour de France is the world's most famous bicycle race, for many the road world championships are a more intriguing affair. Unlike the Tour, where just a handful of riders have a real chance at winning the overall and a few big-budget teams control the three-week race, road worlds are one-day events held at the end of a long, grueling season, and they are much more open and therefore more unpredictable.
It is not uncommon for Tour champions and stars of the sport to be beaten by so-called lesser riders. Winning the famous stripes, one of sports' greatest prizes, can land a rider a lucrative contract and make a career. To become champion you need world-class talent, endurance, racecraft, and motivation, but past winners and near winners alike will tell you that you need luck, too.
This year's eight-day, 12-race UCI Road World Championships will showcase over 1,000 cyclists from 75 countries. Each race crowns a new world champion, and each champion wears the rainbow jersey for a year until the next championships. Organizers in RVA expect 450,000 on-site spectators, with another 300 million people tuning in to see the races broadcast worldwide. Lending importance to this year's World Championships is next year's Olympics, because in Richmond we should get a preview of Rio 2016.
Scroll on for detailed course information, race schedules, the favorites, how to watch on TV and online, some insights into worlds' colorful history, and "the curse of the rainbow jersey."